Conscious Hip-Hop

About

I chose the name 'Abacus' as I felt it was a great balance between complexity and simplicity. Firstly, at school, I was always mentally very good with numbers, and with maths in general (regardless of teachers telling me I would fail due to a lack of effort), and to this day, I still find myself trying to work out a complicated question in my head, even though most of the time, I don't even know why I need the answer! But regardless, throughout my life, my mind has always been obsessed with numbers.

Despite this, an abacus is actually a very simple device, which can only count a limited amount of numbers. This side of 'Abacus' represents the limitations which I have faced, and continue to face in life, as a struggle to break through in the music industry. It is also represents the importance of the simple things and the small numbers, I don't have a big team of people helping me, 95% of the time the only person supporting me is my girlfriend, and simply put, the number of real friends I have made in my life could be counted on one hand.

I first started listening to rap music when I was 7 or 8 years old, when my older brother put a couple of Eminem and Chamillionaire songs on my little MP3 player, however, not one to follow the mainstream, I never really got hooked on Eminem. Instead, by the time I hit secondary school, I started listening to newer Chamillionaire songs, and as he left his record label, his songs became more personal and real, and I loved it. I found it refreshing hearing someone rap in a way which wouldn't appear in mainstream music, and so at the age of 14, I created a YouTube Channel and started writing my own songs, and although my songs at the time were pretty bad, I always kept belief in them, and it was all part of the learning process. I continued listening primarily to American rappers, and was inspired by groups such as Funk Volume, where I felt they were releasing unique material.

By the age of 16, I began listening to more British Rap, as I came across rappers such as Cashtastic and Akala, I found that there were MCs talking about even more personal and relatable things than what I had found in the past, and because of this I began to listen to more British music to the extent where now, I listen to 99.9% British rap. As the years passed, I discovered more and more deep British rappers such as Lowkey, Logic, Benny Banks, Brotherhood and Splinta, it brought about an influx of development, as I began to perfect my lyrics, and work on my flow in order to put me in a position where I could be at a similar level to the MC's I listened to. Each track was an improvement on the last, and another step in my story, as I saw rapping develop into being more than just a hobby.

And now, aged 21, my story continues, as I find myself willing to commit my life to music, only increasing my rate of improvement and developed. Leaving me in a position where despite knowing there is still a long road ahead, I know that now is the time to start breaking through in music...